1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein relate to a polylactic acid resin composition and a resin molded article thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
While depletion of petroleum resources, a CO2 reduction, and the like have been perceived as problems, a polylactic acid using lactic acid obtained by fermenting a grain resource such as corn as a raw material has been attracting attention. Polylactic acid is a resin derived from a plant as described above and has the following characteristics: Polylactic acid has high rigidity, and is excellent in transparency. However, its applications have been limited as compared to an ordinary resin because of, for example, the following reasons: Polylactic acid generally has low heat resistance and low impact resistance, and hence typically cannot be used under a high-temperature condition.
Available as a method of improving the heat resistance of the polylactic acid is, for example, a method involving increasing its crystallinity through a heat treatment (annealing treatment). However, the method involves, for example, the following problems. The method is not practical owing to an extremely long heat treatment time and transparency of the polylactic acid reduces in association with progress of its crystallization.
In view of the foregoing, blending of various plasticizers and crystal nucleating agents into a resin composition using the polylactic acid as a polymer has been investigated as a method of solving those problems in recent years.
For example, the following has been proposed as an example of the blending (International Publication No. WO2008/010318A). A fatty acid ester formed of a dehydration condensate of a sugar alcohol and a fatty acid is used as the plasticizer, and a layered silicate is used as the crystal nucleating agent.
In addition to the foregoing, for example, the following has been proposed (Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. JP-A-2007-130895). A saturated ester is used as the plasticizer and an aliphatic ester or a fatty acid amide is used as the crystal nucleating agent.
However, generally the applications where the resin composition disclosed in WO2008/010318A can be used are extremely limited owing to its low transparency and low heat resistance. Moreover, the resin composition involves a problem in that productivity at the time of its mold forming is poor because a molded article thereof is liable to deform upon its removal from the mold unless a molding time during the mold forming is set to be long.
On the other hand, the transparency of the resin composition disclosed in JP-A-2007-130895 has been somewhat improved. However, a molded article excellent in transparency and migration resistance typically cannot be obtained from the resin composition because the resin composition is liable to be migrated in water or an alcohol. Further, the resin composition still has room for improvement because its productivity at the time of the mold forming thereof is not sufficient.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a polylactic acid resin composition excellent in transparency, heat resistance, and migration resistance, and excellent in productivity at the time of the mold forming thereof, and a resin molded article thereof.